Interesting ... 'Incidence structure(s)'

Unsurprising, in studying 'Hodges' model, I've been aware of Wilfrid Hodges and model theory for many years.

Now, trying to look at (Brian) Hodges' model using maths, I've wondered about possible connections with Wilfred Hodges' work.

Dr W. Hodges was listed in searches on lines, axes, and structure:

'Algebraists and geometers like to classify structures by the laws which they obey. A typical law for incidence structures reads:

"For any two different lines L and M, there is exactly one point which lies on both L and M."'

My imagination may be getting the better of me, but there seems something profound in the intersection of the model's two axes and the care - knowledge domains that are created (proposed - adopted..)?

So, is Hodges' model a form of 'incidence structure', or does it contain several incidence structures? 

Hodges, W. (1985). Truth in a Structure. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 86, 135–151. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4545041

Self-Care Week c/o Herakut

If, when you see, or hear of Hodges' model, you think 'Oh, that's about dividing the world up, putting things - including people! - into boxes.'; I'd request you to please reconsider?

Hodges' model, the two axes, the four care - knowledge domains or quadrants can be thought of as a temporary home. It's like a tent. No, it's actually more simplified than that. More like a bivouac. A shelter that needs to be constructed not with ready-to-hand materials and terrain, but what can be - ready-to-mind.

This construction makes use of two 'sticks' to form the model's axes. A key element too are the dichotomies - polarities - oppositions - continua that the model can reveal with a situated search. This search can variously be local, regional, global, or glocal (as I explained earlier this week - to follow).

This past week has been Self Care Week and the resulting bivouac is an idea-l-isation; a temporary home for a person and a group.

On twitter @SelfCareForum featured the 'continuum of self care':

The Self Care Continuum

Using Hodges' model, reflection on the above picture soon demonstrates the scope of the model. You can navigate the full range of care displayed above. There is however much more to discover.

Amid the ongoing pandemic, we've recognised anew, or afresh, the importance and value of the outdoors, nature and the environment in all its forms. Recently, I've had to take walks with patients/clients in the community, being unable to take in the aspect of assessment that stepping indoors usually provides.

Personally, for many of us, self care is predicated on the care of others: children, older parents, friends, colleagues and the community. A parent you haven't hugged, or kissed since March 2020.

Infants and children are missing out on truly formative years of schooling and teenagers on socialisation. Apparently, among the young, eco-anxiety is a real phenomena, whether it is debated as an unsurprising fact of 21st century life, or a medical problem.

Hodges' model is much more than axes, continua and boxes. While as shown on this blog (since 2006) Hodges' model is made up of several axes and dichotomies, the model's boxes provide the means to weigh the evidence. The model can help that a given situation and context is considered holistically (parity of esteem in physical and mental health) and in a person-centred way. Then, having fulfilled their purpose, we can collapse the boxes, the bivouac and carry forward the conceptually integrated care.

To deal with eco-anxiety, we need tangible signs of social and political progress, as action is taken to tackle the climate crisis. Physical evidence is the best emotional therapy of all. Just imagine when the news media reports that CO₂ has decreased, sea-level rise is slowing, plastic and air pollution are reducing.

When will that be?

I'm not sure and as with COVID-19, the uncertainty is a collective and protracted pain.

As the arts continue to inspire us, there is no doubt that caring for self and all are now inextricably linked: from self-care to planetary health.

What do you think - Self Care Tree Girl?

 

 individual 

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

 

Self Caring Tree Girl, 2020

 

My sources: And with many thanks.

Herakut

Self Care Forum

See also:

Or if you have plenty of time, @WoncaWorld also has a full webinar to watch and consider. Environment & Healthy recovery https://t.co/iNepXRhUZD via @YouTube pic.twitter.com/hyTVQgJLEq

— SCwE (@SelfCareWeekEU) November 21, 2020

Revisiting disciplinary-bridges: c/o Geopsychiatry*

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

Psychiatry ' mental space' Post Traumatic Stress Disorder psychological violence psycho-	'inner - outer space' Geo-graphy physical violence 'fight or flight' -somatic -physical -physico
-social social violence Stress - intergenerational transmission vulnerable groups - women, children and males 'social space'	-political refugees  conflict  migration POLITICS The consequences of occupying this  'space'  (or not) are Legion political violence: slavery - war crimes

Thanks to GeoPsychiatry on twitter

 * 'Where' do we find - locate peace?

'geography' on W2tQ

and 'psychogeography'

InSight: Mars in Mind

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

insight [full <--------> none]
I am NOT ill ! You are ill !	Place of safety Local vs 'Out-of-area'

"Kind of Blue" Balance in all Things?

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I (1514)

"Writing three decades ago about Austrian literature, the German author WG Sebald made a case for melancholia as a form of resistance. It was tempting, he said in Die Beschreibung des Unglücks (“The Description of Disaster”), to see the drive to describe misery as reactionary. But in fact, it could be much more productive and radical: “Melancholia, the contemplation of the dismal plight we are in, has nothing in common with the desire to die . . . Describing the dismal plight we face contains the possibility of overcoming it.”

My source:
Feigel, L. (2017) Kind of blue. FT Weekend, Life&Arts, 23-24 September. p.9.

"Lara Feigel is the curator (with John-Paul Stonard) of ‘Melancholia. A Sebald Variation’, an exhibition that runs in King’s College London’s Inigo Rooms from 21 September - 10 December."

Image:
Albrecht Dürer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMelencolia_I_(Durero).jpg

HUMANISTIC-MECHANISTIC: How far can dichotomy travel?

International Space Station STS-127 Wikimedia

Where are the Voyagers Now?

Image source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/ISS_%26_Endeavour_Shadow_STS-127_2.jpg

Cognitive continua ( ... just a sentence of promise)

The idea of a cognitive 

continuum 

has much to offer nurses 

and its potential 

has yet to be fully exploited. p.136.

Thompson, C. (2001) JAN Forum: Clinical decision making in nursing: theoretical perspectives and their relevance to practice - a response to Jean Harbison. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 35(1), 134-137.

Dialectics in therapy, case formulation, h2cm and a tree

Kuyken et al. (2009) propose three dialectics that are useful in an evaluation of their model for case conceptualization, these are:

Released today - 28th Jan 2013

nomothetic – idiopathic; 
simple – complex; 
and subjective – objective.

This act of identifying polarities can be described as a diagrammatic formulation in itself.

These dialectics and many others can be readily incorporated into h2cm: for example;

socio – technical,
macro – micro.
...

Kuyken, W., Padesky, C., Dudley, R. (2009). Collaborative case conceptualization. New York, The Guilford Press.

How solid is the framework? Paper: Perceptual ratings of opposite spatial properties...

In researching conceptual spaces and h2cm I came across the following paper:

Bianchi, I. , Savardi, U., Burro, R. (2011). Perceptual ratings of opposite spatial properties: Do they lie on the same dimension? Acta Psychologica, 138, 3, 405-418.

As constructed h2cm makes several assumptions with its axial structure. Is the placement of humanistic – mechanistic and individual – group on continua truly representative of the opposites of continua?

It seems that to address this question we must investigate cognitive linguistics. Bianchi et al., raise the following for consideration:

The idea that two contrary properties lie on the same continuum has formed the basis of various methodologies used in experimental research in the field of Psychology since the late sixties (e.g. the differential semantic method, Likert scales, etc.); however, an increasing number of methodologists are facing problems connected to the assumption of unidimensionality in opposite scales ... (p.405).

I wonder to what extent the original purposes of h2cm can support the existing continua? Nursing and the scope of nursing should also be able to substantiate the model. Nursing is person-centred. 

The idea that opposites presuppose an underlying continuum has been a default assumption in linguistics and cognitive semantics for more than two decades even though it has been noted that in every-day language people describe their perceptions in terms of opposites (“you are driving fast”, “the walk is long”, “the room is small”, “it's hot today”) instead of using unidimensional scales (respectively, velocity, size and temperature) (p.406).

Related post:
http://hodges-model.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/combining-h2cm-informing-science-and.html

Notes (III) for a 2010 introduction to the Health Career Model

Definition through purpose

The original purposes for the model's creation are as relevant today as they were in 1983-84:

1. To produce a curriculum development tool;
2. Help ensure holistic assessment and evaluation;
3. To support reflective practice;
4. To reduce the theory-practice gap.

Items 1-4 plus safety are all dependent in one way or another upon knowledge. Admittedly, this is a case of stating the obvious and something of a non-statement in that everything comes down to being knowledge (or nonsense). Resort to some global notion of 'knowledge' amounts to non-differentiation and this tells us nothing. On the contrary: this is how the simplicity of Hodges' model can cultivate and give rise to global complexity. This can help explain the model's potential and utility as a cognitive tool, an aide memoire, a mental prompt and structured conceptual checklist to frame:

• thought
• knowledge (ontology)
  
• perspectives
• dialogue
• problems
• strengths - weaknesses
• plans and actions
• outcomes
• and much more ...

Whether student or specialist practitioner various conceptual elements and (care) threads can be acquired, constructed, integrated and mapped from the dual (in-situ) worlds of theory and practice to the cognitive (personal - reflective) and virtual [cogeographic?]. This means the model can be used as a mental prompt helping to inform theory as in a lecture and subsequent essay; or practically during an interview or care assessment. Beyond this cognitive application, the model's produced can then also be captured and represented on paper, or as an electronic record - by various user communities. ... (Notes IV to follow)

[These are notes. If you have any thoughts, views on a new introduction to the model please get in touch:
h2cmng @ yahoo.co.uk What do you feel needs to be explained? Which audience should be addressed in the first instance? What assumptions can be made? ....? Many thanks PJ ]

Notes I intro for 2010

Notes II intro for 2010

Notes (II) for a 2010 introduction to the Health Career Model

... Where to start?

By its very nature as already suggested Hodges' model is difficult to explain. There are so many elements that demand our attention and so many avenues to run. Despite revealing one heading to be followed, Murphy (2002) describes how a theory of concepts is still elusive. From this we might focus purely on nursing and take a professional stance. We should be able after all to assume solid grounds for the system that supports nursing: namely nurse education. There is no need to do this as existing theories of concepts can provide a vehicle for explanation and research of Hodges' model.

Frequently acknowledged as a science AND an art, the individual-group axis in Hodges' model and the accent on communication makes individual and group psychology as much a pivotal source of knowledge as human anatomy and physiology. There are differences in the methods of verification, but the dependency is there and evident in the core nursing curriculum. Even though psychology remains a young science, resort to psychology is advantageous in other respects as the development of cognitive science and computer science can also inform our thought and research on Hodges' model. Fundamental to this is the basic form of the model construct the 2 x 2 matrix.

There are a great multitude of models that take this 2 x 2 matrix form. Apart from mathematics examples one the most commonly cited and influential is the so-called Johari window model of Harry Ingham and Joseph Luft which dates from 1955. Luft and Ingham were psychologists who created their model at the University of California, Los Angeles, while researching group dynamics. The Johari model has found a home in soft systems problems and can now be found in many other variations and one-off examples. There are whole books devoted to the subject of '2 x 2', an acknowledgment indeed of their utility and ubiquity (Lowy and Hood, 2004). From the OHP transparencies of old to the latest data projection forms, the 2 x 2 matrix is the tool of choice in the management consultant's armamentarium. This special cognitive device can also serve the local and global health and social care community.

Ref:
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Matrix-Thinking-Decisions-Management/dp/0787972924

The Power of the 2 x 2 Matrix - at Wiley

Additional links:

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2008/02/big-book-of-concepts.html
[ Murphy, G. L. (2002). The big book of concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ]

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2010/02/notes-for-2010-introduction-to-health.html

ERCIM News No. 73 Special theme: "Mathematics for Everyday Life"

The latest ERCIM News is available and since the last issue highlighted on W2tQ I've been looking forward to this one. The copy covers Everyday Maths with articles on health and the human body pp.12-18, society pp.31-36 and much more. I was tantalised by The Continuum Hypothesis: A Mystery of Mathematics, p.37, which had me thinking - surely that is a mystery of the social sciences? ;-)

Something to contemplate in retirement that - reliving the pain of mathematical encounters as a youngster. I do plan to go back to school for maths - if granted the time. ...

What would it be like to see the world with true mathematical vision?
I wonder....?

P.S. Don't miss p.26 listed under Water and Weather 'Maths Improves Quality of Life: An Early-Warning System for Environmental Effects on Public Health'.

ERCIM: European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics

The symbol '+'

Apart from a multitude of symbolic meanings the figure below also provides the structural foundation for Hodges' model and as symbols.com notes:

The cross with arms of equal length is an extremely old ideogram used in most cultures. It is also one of the basic gestalts in Western ideography (as opposed to the basic elements, which are derived entities). The cross is found in every part of the world, in prehistoric caves and engraved on rocks.

In my interview with Brian Hodges' over 10 years ago in May 1997, Brian provided an account for how he arrived at this structure (summarised below). As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the website, symbols.com and other sources - the cross, or 2x2 matrix is a common device to explain and structure. The four elements, the four humours (or humors) yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood, the seasons; there are so many things that can be characterised in this way.

With '+' as a starting point for me to reflect on Hodges' model I see each line as an individual. This agent or subject could include patient (person) and health care worker; lecturer and student and many other examples.

The act of cros-sing, the intersection of the axes represents two human beings being in a situation.

Space and time brings people together:

and also forces us apart - physically and temporally.

Adding an arrow to one end of these axes creates the dynamic of communication.

The angular distance in the alignment of those arrows offers hope -

• in our common humanity we are never in 180 degree opposition;

and yet acknowledges:

• the isolation of the individual -
  
• and the challenge.

The work that must done. Hence the primacy of communication skills and values; in order to bridge individual being, ti:me and space.

Perspective is helpful here as an extension:

While we may get close to another person, through relationships that entwine the lines - be they spun by professional obligations, friendship, family ties, or intimate sexual relationships - the two lines are always distinct: part of an elaborated knot.

Is it just the special ties that must forever seek to be one+

---

The best way to explain h2cm is to review the questions Brian Hodges originally posed.

To begin, who are the recipients of care? Well, first and foremost individuals of all ages, races and creed, but also groups of people, families, communities and populations. Then Hodges asked: what types of activities - tasks, duties, and treatments - do nurses carry out? They must always act professionally, but frequently according to strict rules and policies, their actions often dictated by specific treatments including drugs, investigations, and minor surgery. Nurses do many things by routine according to precise procedures, rather like the stereotypical matron with machine-like efficiency? If these actions are classed as mechanistic, they contrast with times when healthcare workers give of themselves to reassure, comfort, develop rapport and engage therapeutically.

This is opposite to mechanistic tasks and is described as humanistic; what the public usually think of as the caring nurse. In use this framework prompts the user to consider four major subject headings or care domains of knowledge. Namely, what knowledge is needed to care for individuals - groups and undertake humanistic - mechanistic activities? Through these questions Hodges’ derived the model axial structure.